Remembering Heals
by openxyourxeyes
Summary: Lily is one of the most unique witches that Hogwarts has ever seen. She's depressed because of something that happened in the past, that she swore to forget. But now, fate is getting to throw someone into Lily's path that could change her life forever.
1. Forget the Rain

It was raining. It was the kind of rain that starts up so suddenly that you don't really know what's happening...and then stops as quickly as it comes, before your mind quite registers the fact of rain. One person, however, was registering this fact very well. She was a 15-year old girl, with long auburn hair cascading down her shoulders in little waves. Her eyes were a brilliant green color; so bright and shiny that one might mistake them for emeralds. But right now, tears the sizes of coins were pouring out of those amazing green eyes.   
  
The girl looked out from the window, her vision blurring because of her crying. She saw the rain, pounding hard on the sidewalks, trickling down the windows, making muddy puddles in the middle of the road. It had been raining on the day that...it happened, too. On that fateful day that her life had taken such an unexpected, dreadful twist. On that day that...no, the girl told herself fiercely. I will not remember it. I will forget. Remembering only causes pain...   
  
And with that, the girl wiped off all the tears from her cheeks, plastered the fakest smile she could muster on her face, and walked off.  
  
The girl's name was Lily Mariko Rose Evans. It was a name that her father had thought up of the second she was born, and it was a name that Lily had hated all her life. It was bad enough to be named after a flower, but to also have "rose" as her middle name was unbearable. However, this girl hardly acted like a sweet rose at all.   
  
Lily walked over to the mirror and looked at herself. If, at this moment, Lily had been wearing a tube top and skirt, and had her hair up in a perfect bun and applied all her make-up, she would have looked like a human Barbie-doll. However, that was not the case. The image shown in the mirror was a 15-year old girl dressed in baggy black cargos and a blood red shirt that said in wispy letters, "Are you afraid of me?" There was absolutely no make-up on her face, and her hair was not exactly...combed. Instead of human Barbie-doll, she looked like a punk.   
  
And that was exactly what she was.  
  
Lily looked around her room, slowly taking in every detail. It was a gorgeous room, one that any 15-year old girl would have given anything to live in. It had an antique chest with a large, gold-plated mirror sitting on it, with every drawer of the chest filled with different make-up. Her bed was made covered with royal blue hangings and the mattress was as soft as clouds. Lily had 3 private phone-lines, one to call servants up to her room, one to call her friends, and one to call for take-out. 3 different colored, deluxe phones sat lazily on a beautiful mahogany desk sitting next to her bed. Her closet was absolutely filled with popular clothes and about 50 dresses. It was a teenage paradise.   
  
However, there was one problem. Lily Evans happened to hate her room. She hated her whole house, which was a quasi-European mansion, probably the biggest mansion in all of England. She hated her life, her clothes, her shoes, her family...she was going through a life-sucks-and-you-do-too phase that didn't seem likely to pass anytime soon.   
  
The redhead sighed and plopped herself onto her bed when the phone rang. The friends phone line.  
  
Lily picked up her blue phone lazily, knowing that there could be only one person calling her on this phone line. That was because Lily had only one friend. Carrie.   
  
"Hey Carrie," she said through a yawn.   
  
"Morning Lils!" Came the excited voice of her best friend through the phone. "OK...I was thinking, maybe tomorrow, we could go shopping in Diagon Alley!"   
  
"Uh...I don't know. I mean, you know Grandmother is about letting me out with...you know..."   
  
"Magical folk? Yeah, I get that. I know your gran is all...against magic. But that hasn't stopped you from going to Hogwarts the past 4 years has it?"   
  
"Yeah, I guess..."   
  
"So, you're coming?"   
  
"Fine."   
  
"Good. Now, let's talk about...him."   
  
Lily rolled her eyes, and tuned out her best friend's droning about her all-time favorite subject. James Potter.   
  
Carrie was usually a punk, but when it came to James Potter, she sounded like one of those preppy girls who spent all their time at salons, doing their make up and talking about guys. Her best friend would just melt when she saw James Potter, and Lily always had to make sure she wouldn't actually drool in public.   
  
Lily couldn't see why though. To her, James Potter was an arrogant, conceited, egotistical, jerk. It wasn't like she had actually talked to the guy, but everyone knew him. He was star of the Quidditch team, the guy with the "totally cute messed-up black hair and warm hazel eyes," the guy who dated every girl who he labeled as "easy," the guy who bullied everyone he felt like bullying...  
  
And Carrie did not match as one of those girls who James Potter and his best friend, Sirius Black, labeled as "easy." Carrie was a hard core punk, who had, like Lily, never picked up a tube of lipstick before. The only make-up she owned was a bottle of black eyeliner, which she hadn't ever opened. She wore either black or red, like Lily, and chewed gum all the time, and never really took her homework that seriously. She used to have soft brown hair, but since she'd dyed it so many colors, it looked a crazy mixture of reddish mud with yellow streaks right now. Her eyes were mysterious and midnight blue, but Carrie sometimes wore purple color contacts, just to freak everyone out.   
  
Lily and Carrie had been friends since their first year at their school, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Like the school's name shows, Lily and Carrie were witches. They didn't have green, mottled skin and warty noses, but they used wands and cauldrons and flew on actual brooms. They were full-fledged, wonderful witches.   
  
But Lily and Carrie were also outcasts. They barely spoke to anyone but each other, and usually spent their time scheming pranks and never playing them. That was because whenever the two girls played pranks, everyone thought that the Marauders, the four most popular guys in school (including Potter) had played them instead. So, the girls would just huddle in their own private corners, talk about pranks, backbite the preps, and have fun together. Lily enjoyed this kind of life though, without having any kind of contact with the "accepted" world and getting to spend all her time with her best friend.   
  
"So, anyway, I saw James on the street...and I think he actually looked at me. I think we had a second of eye contact there. Oh my gosh, I love his hazel eyes..."   
  
Lily sighed, told her best friend she had to go, and hung up. James Potter. God, I hate him. She thought. 


	2. Breakfast Pains

My apologies to everyone for not introducing myself earlier. *pulls out microphone* Hello. My name would be Amy. I've been trying to get this story up here for a while, but alas, I'm hopeless with electronics, and I couldn't figure out how to upload documents. *laughs at self* Anyway, this story is about how James teaches Lily that sometimes, the only way to heal...is by remembering the wounds that hurt you in the first place...  
  
Disclaimer: Although I think this pointless, because I am obviously not J.K. Rowling, I heard somewhere that you could get sued if you didn't do this - so, here goes. I am not J.K. Rowling. I do not own these characters. This is a fanfiction, so don't bother going to court and trying to sue me. Thank you.  
  
Please review! Thanks!  
  
Lily plopped back on the bed and was about to catch an extra few minutes of sleep, when the green phone rang. The green phone line was restricted strictly to calls only from her maids. Lily looked at her cheap black watch streaked with red fake blood, which read 5:14 AM. Time to wake up, thought Lily with a roll of her eyes, and picked up the phone.   
  
"Hello, Little Mistress Evans," came the overly enthusiastic voice of Maria, a new maid who was 19 years old. Maria was actually hated by her grandmother because she was so...excited all the time, but Maria liked to try to make up for the dislike by working harder than any maid.   
  
"Hi Maria," answered Lily. She absolutely hated it when people called her "Little Mistress Evans," but the name "Mistress Evans" was already taken by her older sister, Petunia. Madam Evans was of course, her grandmother's name.   
  
"How are you feeling today, sweetie?" she asked, and Lily answered bluntly with, "Fine."   
  
"Oh? Well, that's good. Anyway, it's time to wake up and cook breakfast for your dear Madam Evans!" she said, and then hung up with another overly enthusiastic "Buh-bye, dear!"   
  
Lily sighed, and fell back down on her bed. Her grandmother was now 72 years old, but back in the old days, she used to be a famous fashion model. In fact, that was why her grandmother could afford such a huge house for her two grandchildren. The only reason Lily and Petunia lived with their grandmother was because their parents weren't there to take care of them anymore. In fact, everyone else in Lily's family had gone up to heaven...on that one fateful, rainy day. However, Lily hated to remember that day, so she closed her eyes and shut off all the pain, trying to push all her feelings away. After that day, her grandmother had been driven crazy with grief, and now she liked giving her only two grandchildren misery and pain. For instance, if Lily's hair wasn't perfect, Grandmother Evans would take a cane, tell Lily to bend down, and give her three whips. It was the same with breakfast. Madam Evans always made Petunia and Lily cook breakfast even though the maids could make it, just to make them suffer and have practice on being an old-fashioned woman who only knew how to knit and cook. If every inch of breakfast wasn't perfect, Lily and Petunia had to face the cane. She even got some of the maids and butlers to beat them up for her.   
  
Lily picked up the green phone again, fighting back the tears at thinking about...that day. It was time to call Borris.  
  
Borris Benson had worked for Madam Evans for over 20 years, and was now her most trusted butler. However, Grandmother had absolutely no idea that Borris had actually formed a secret friendship with Lily. Borris hated the idea of whipping the girls if they were not perfect, so he would take them up to "the beating chamber", and just let them stay without hurting them. Lily had loved Borris's kindness so much, that they had become quick friends. Now, Lily would call Borris up with errands such as "I need a glass of water," and then spend a long time talking about Hogwarts and magic and everything she loved to talk about. Borris would sit there, and smile, frown, and nod at exactly the right parts. He had become like a father to Lily, and was her only servant that knew about Lily being a witch.   
  
"Hello, Borris?"   
  
"Good morning, Little Mistress Evans."   
  
"Yes, I need a Tic-Tac, could you bring one up?"   
  
"Coming, Little Mistress." Borris grabbed a tin of orange Tic-Tacs, went to the servant elevator, and pressed level 3, the level that Lily was on. He knocked on the shiny mahogany door that was Lily's and said, "Tic-Tac?"   
  
"Come in," was Lily's loud reply, and Borris went in. He didn't say anything, just went straight to the redhead's closet, and threw out a golden halter-top and tight jeans. "Wear those with your gold heels," he said, and Lily went into the bathroom to change.   
  
Borris always helped Lily out with wardrobe and make-up. As the girl would get beaten if she didn't look perfect, he always came every morning to help her out. Lily came out of the closet looking stunning, and Borris pointed to a chair.   
  
"All right, golden halter top...so, I'm thinking light yellow eye shadow..." he said, and worked his magic in a short time span of 5 minutes.   
  
"All right, good luck," he said, bowed, and was out the room. Lily smiled.  
  
Lily swept out of her room and climbed onto the elevator marked "L.M.E" for Little Mistress Evans. It was a marble elevator with mirrors on every side, and only allowed to be used by her. "Level one," muttered Lily, and the elevator replied with a "Yes, mistress." It was a very rare and expensive automatic elevator.   
  
As soon as the redhead was on level one, she spotted her older sister, Petunia. She was wearing a pink slip dress and matching pink flip-flops, chewing on a piece of gum incessantly. Her stringy blond hair was tied up in a knot at the top of her head, and she said in a venomous voice, "I never thought someone could take so long on getting ready..."   
  
"And I never thought that anyone could look so much like a horse dressed in pink." finished Lily, and then entered the kitchen, leaving Petunia to contemplate what that had just meant. The kitchen had tall, grand ceilings decorated in frescoes, and practically everything was mahogany or marble. Lily picked up a skillet expertly, and cracked two eggs in it, throwing in bits of bacon too. This breakfast had to be just perfect, or it would be hard to bring up the question of going to Diagon Alley to her grandmother.  
  
About an hour later, Lily and Petunia finished cooking Madam Evan's fabulous breakfast. The girls had cooked everything from pancakes, sushi, and egg rolls, and laid them all out on expensive dishes for her grandmother to eat.   
  
Madam Evans came down the stairs and into the kitchen, her wispy gray hair up in a messy bun and dressed in a red silk nightgown. Lily wondered why she had to dress up for everything when her grandmother could come down the stairs looking like crap whenever she liked. However, the redhead did not mention her thoughts, and went down in a deep bow as her grandmother came down the stairs. The older women acknowledged her two granddaughter's bows and curtsies with an nod, and said in her raspy, disgusting voice, "Good morning ladies."   
  
"Good morning Madam," the girls chorused, both smiling fakely.   
  
"I see you've cooked breakfast. Well, let me check if this breakfast is worthy of my lips."   
  
Lily tried very hard not to roll her eyes at that, and gritted her teeth down hard. She watched intently as her grandmother swooped down on the food, smelling, licking, and touching to see if the girls' cooking was perfect. Then, she shrieked. A bad sign.   
  
"The bread! Who cooked the bread? The bread is burnt!"   
  
Petunia had popped the bread in the toaster that morning, so it meant that she was to get the whips. Petunia's bottom lip quivered and her eyes started filling with tears. She opened her mouth slowly and---   
  
Lily cut in quickly. "I cooked the bread, madam. Therefore, I am yours to beat." Her older sister looked at her quizzically, but Lily stepped forward, ignoring her. Madam Evans told her to bend down, took a cane from the shelf, and whacked Lily's back in a practiced motion.  
  
Lily bit her lip and forced back the tears as her grandmother smacked her with her cane. Then, she looked up with a cheeky smile and said, "Thank you for punishing me grandmother." The woman did not look pleased.   
  
"You look smug, girl. You will learn to apologize, not be sarcastic. Bend down again." With that, her grandmother cracked the whip again. Lily could feel the cane cutting into her skin, and she could almost imagine the huge welts across her back--but she didn't flinch. She didn't scream out in pain, like she wanted to, and she didn't ask her grandmother to stop. After the 10th whip, her Madam Evans told Lily to stand up. Lily's face was red because all the blood had rushed to her head. She was biting her lip so hard that it was bleeding. Her hair was a mess, and it looked like the cane had knocked the wind out of her. But Lily simply smiled and asked, "Grandmother, could I go shopping for school tomorrow?"   
  
Lily knew perfectly well what the answer would be. Madam Evans hated everything that had to do with magic, and had done her best to try to send Lily to an expensive, private school---but Lily had protested all she could and went to Hogwarts. Surprisingly though, her grandmother smiled sweetly back and said, "Of course, darling. Go ahead. Clean up your wounds and go shopping tomorrow. Have fun!"   
  
Lily frowned. That tone of voice and that disgusting smile had to mean her grandmother was plotting something. And that was never good. 


	3. Magical Memories

*This would be Amy...thank you for the reviews! Rinoa, just try to log in over and over again, that's the only way I can work that site sometimes...curse those WB people...*  
  
The next morning, Lily woke up early and started to get ready to go to Diagon Alley. She was still pretty clueless as to what her grandmother was hiding, but the redhead swore to forget about her fear today, and just enjoy the day with Carrie.   
  
Lily slipped into a pair of sweatpants, a plain black shirt, and put her hair in a messy ponytail. Then, she put on her cheap black watch, and didn't even bother with make-up. It felt good to be able to be herself for once. She put on a pair of black shoes, and ran down the long flights of stairs (she was feeling too energetic for the elevator) and waved an enigmatic hello to Borris.   
  
Her butler was dressed in his normal suit and tie, his hair combed and his face cleanly shaved. The look suited Borris very well...so, neat, and clean. Lily hopped into her limo, and asked Borris to pop in a punk rock CD. It was the first time she had listened to her kind of music in a long time, and she was happy to hear it again.   
  
"Ah, it's good to be me..." She muttered.  
  
The limo pulled up by a small yellow house on the side of the road, Carrie's house. Lily straightened her pants, sent Borris a thumbs-up, and rang the doorbell of her best friend's chipped white door. Heavy footsteps thudded down the stairs, and a annoyed 15-year old swung the door open. She was dressed in lojng black pants and a red shirt. Her hair was a total mess and sticking up everywhere. Her fingernails were painted black and chipping quickly. It was definitely Carrie.   
  
Suddenly, the bored expression left the face of Carrie, and a grin lit up on her face. "Lils!" She shrieked, and threw her arms around the redhead. Then, she eyed Borris rather strangely and asked, "Who's this?"   
  
"This is Borris, my butler -- the one who knows about Hogwarts and..."   
  
"Oooh, Orri! Hey, yeah, I've heard lots about you man!" Cried Carrie, and threw her arms around the 40-year old man as well. Borris looked uncomfortable and patted Carrie's back rather awkwardly while mouthing, "Orri?!"   
  
Lily laughed. Her best friend was absolutely obsessed with nicknames. Orri was her nickname for Borris, she called Dumbledore Alby, and the Marauders were dubbed the "Rauders." Carrie made up random nicknames for everyone, and the two always had a laugh over her strange obsession.   
  
"Well, then...let's go!" Cried Carrie, once Borris had gotten over his shock over his new name...Orri.  
  
Carrie gasped when she saw the shiny black limo parked right outside her shabby house -- but soon smiled. "You know, I really sometimes like the fact that you're rich..." she said, and hopped into the car.   
  
The two sang along to their punk rock songs so loudly during the car ride that Borris had to put Lily's "BLACK DEATH" earmuffs on. He yelled over the two girls' singing, "Could you keep it down?" Neither of them listened, and kept on singing right on until they pulled up on a the street.   
  
It was a street in the middle of London, filled with rushing Muggles going on about their business. However, these two girls looks so...unaffected by all the rushing. While everyone had messed-up hair from the wind, and kept checking their watches, and had a cross expression on their faces...the girls didn't. They seemed out of place in such a busy, fast world. Lily and Carrie's walking was calm and cool, both of them were smiling, and they seemed so untouched by the tense mood. They were the kind of people that seemed like they could accept anything, and live through anything. They just seemed...strong.   
  
Lily and Carrie however, did not notice that they were out of place in this Muggle street, and, laughing and joking, walked up to a small, shabby lot squeezed in between two, huge, Muggle buildings. It was a small cot-sort of place, and had a squeaky sign that said, "LEAKY CAULDRON" posted near it. It was the kind of place that the normal human eye would miss at first, and only when they were lead directly to the place, would they notice it. But these two girls walked right to the place as though it was their destination.   
  
And it was.  
  
Lily and Carrie walked into the shabby Leaky Cauldron, and surprisingly, everyone who was there had that strange...air around them. Everyone's eyes twinkled with the mystery of kept secrets, and instead of the cross, frustrated faces that many outside bore, most were laughing and talking cheerily. They just seemed like the kind of people who didn't belong in the busy streets of London.   
  
Borris walked into the shop and felt an overwhelming sense of magic. Even though there were little kids in the shop, it just seemed to him that even those 5 year olds could be counted as superiors to him, because at such a young age, they knew...and believed in so much.   
  
Then he spotted a small kid with moss-like, green skin and long, yellow fingernails. He wondered if the kid was getting ready for Halloween, and leaned into Lily and asked, "Is Halloween in August in the magic world?"   
  
When Lily shot him a confused look, he pointed to the kid in the mask. Lily's gaze followed Borris's finger, and then a scowl came over her face. She pointed the "kid" out to Carrie too, and a similar expression formed on her face, too.   
  
"Borris," whispered Lily cautiously, "If you went over to that 'kid' and tried to yank off his mask, all you would feel is warm, live, warty skin."   
  
"What in the hell do you mean?" Asked Borris, his face growing alarmed.   
  
"See, Orri--that's a goblin," said Carrie simply. "They're kinda...greedy, and they gamble all the time. They usually owe lots of money, and try to cheat you out of yours. So hold on tight to your wallet."   
  
Borris nodded and clutched his pocket protectively, and the girls followed his example.  
  
"OK Lily, be careful, I don't want you getting in any trouble..." started the butler.   
  
"I know, Borris."   
  
"And don't use too much money, I don't want you to run out..."   
  
"I know, Borris."   
  
"And..."   
  
"Borris," said Lily firmly, "you sound like my father or something! I'll be fine, you know I can take care of myself..."   
  
"Yes, but I feel like a father to you, Lily, you know that---"   
  
"But you're not. And you can't be. Come on, you know that."   
  
Borris looked at his almost daughter sadly, and knew she was right. He worked for Madam Evans, the woman who wished the worst for Lily, and if he ever tried to adopt the poor redhead and give her a better life, it would become a huge scandal and the madam would find some way to twist the law around and arrest him.   
  
"Yes. I know. I'll pick you both up at 6:30." He said, nodding at the two girls, and he walked out of the Leaky Cauldron sadly.  
  
Lily watched the retreating back of her butler, and then turned away, fighting back the tears.   
  
"Hey, you want to get a butterbeer?" Asked Carrie, sensing that Lily was feeling a little depressed. The redhead smiled at her best friend and nodded.   
  
"Hey Tom! Could we have two butterbeers please?" Shouted Carrie over the mayhem, and a young man somewhere in his 30's with slightly crooked teeth and a bit of a stomach looked at them. Suddenly, the man's face split into a wide grin.   
  
"Lily! Carrie!" He exclaimed, and came out from the bar, ignoring his other customers. "I haven't seen you two in so long...firs' time I met you, you were two teeny firs' years..."   
  
Lily laughed as she remembered the memory of her first time in the Leaky Cauldron.  
  
It had been a nice, sunny, quiet day that Lily had first visited the Leaky Cauldron. At first, her grandmother was very paranoid about magic, and had forbidden her granddaughter to go to Hogwarts. Angry, Lily remembered leaving the house with a bunch of stolen money from Borris, and walked and walked until she finally stumbled upon the Leaky Cauldron. At that time, the girl felt lost, abandoned, and stupid for leaving the house, and was on the verge of tears.   
  
Lily remembered walking into the cauldron, and asking Tom softly if he knew the way to Diagon Alley. Taking one look at the poor girl, Tom gave her two free butterbeers and asked her if she was a Muggle-born.   
  
"Huh? What's a Muggle-born?"   
  
"That's what you call a magic person who was born from non-magic people."   
  
"Oh...well then, yeah, I guess..."   
  
Suddenly, a boy who was sitting across the counter whipped his head around and asked, "Muggle?" He had raging red hair, just like Lily's, and soft blue eyes. He quickly stuck his hand out and said, "Arthur Weasley. Now, are you a Muggle born?"   
  
"Er...yes."   
  
"Really? Hmm...that's interesting. You know, I have always wanted to ask this question. What is elekity?"  
  
Lily had spent the next hour or two, sipping butterbeers and explaining about the Muggle way of life. Electricity, TV, computers, why Muggle pictures don't move...Arthur and Tom both seemed intrigued by Lily and they seemed to want to know more and more. Eventually, Tom abandoned his own customers, told everyone to get their own drinks, and listened to Lily intently. Lily, who had felt she had made two new friends, was very grateful towards the two, and kept on talking for a long time.   
  
After two hours, Arthur decided that he needed to go shopping for school supplies, and took Lily with him. The third-year gave an extravagant tour of pretty much the whole of Diagon Alley, and even bought her an ice cream cone! Lily was very pleased with her new friend, when a boy with short blond hair ran up to them.   
  
"Arthur--we were pulling a prank on the Slytherins, and now that annoying second-year is yelling at us!"   
  
"Huh? Oh, that Molly kid--I'll take care of her. Lil, thanks for teaching me about Muggles! I'll see you later!"   
  
Then, he ran off to where two ugly-looking boys were lying on the ground, both sporting purple hair. Lily tried not to giggle and guessed that those were the "Slytherins." A stout-looking girl with wild red hair just like hers stood with her hands on her hips.   
  
"Arthur Weasley!" She screamed shrilly. "Stop harassing Slytherins! Just because we're Gryffindors, doesn't mean--"   
  
"Shut up, Molly. You're only a second year. You know you can't beat us third-years."   
  
"Yeah, right, Weasley." Sneered the temperamental girl. "I will kick your bloody arse if it's the last thing I do!"   
  
Lily remembered thinking, Go get him, girl... before she was pulled out of her memory by Tom.  
  
"Lily?! Hello, are you still there?" Asked a worried-looking Tom, as he waved his hand frantically in front of her face. Lily smiled and nodded.   
  
"Yeah, sorry...I was just remembering the first day I came here..."   
  
Carrie interrupted and said, "Come on, Orri is going to pick us up soon, so let's go shopping!"   
  
"Shopping? Ergh...you sound just like my niece...I thought that maybe I could explain to her about how elektikity works or something, but all she wants to do is shop..." sighed Tom.   
  
"Tom!" exclaimed Lily, almost angrily. "You know we're not like that. We're not like those preps who spend all their time talking about guys...you know that!"   
  
Tom smiled at the two girls, gave them a thumbs up and said, "Yes, I know that. I'm just joking...now run along, go get your school supplies!"   
  
"OK! Bye Tommy!" Shouted Carrie and ran out of the bar, heading to the brick wall that lead to Diagon Alley. Lily followed her example after waving at Tom.   
  
"Ah, good girls they are..." said the man quietly to himself, and then turned back to his customers. 


	4. Quidditch players and player boys

Lily and Carrie walked out into the familiar Diagon Alley, relishing the magic in the air. "Ah, it's good to be back here, isn't it?" Sighed Carrie, and Lily just nodded. The two girls then headed to Gringotts, the wizarding bank, to get their money.   
  
The bank was filled with people bustling around, turning their pockets inside out to find their keys. Menacing, annoyed-looking goblins stood with raised eyebrows, saying, "Could you please hurry up, sir?" Lily and Carrie went up to a free goblin and asked if they could visit their vaults.   
  
"Key?" The goblin asked, holding her hand out. The goblin looked like it might be a female, as it had more greasy hair on the top of its head than the other goblins. However, a goblin was a creature where gender was always a mystery.   
  
"Here you go..." Said Lily, handing the goblin two keys, and to her horror, she brought the key to her mouth and started chewing on it. Instead of just biting on the key to check if it was real or not, the goblin seemed to think that the key was delicious, and she started munching on it like a carrot. After a while, she realized what she was doing, and handed the saliva-covered keys to Lily.   
  
"Looks like they're real..." muttered the goblin, and lead the way down to the vaults.

Lily and Carrie rode in carts down to the vaults in Gringotts. Their first stop was Carrie's vault, number 324. The goblin stepped out of the cart first, and at first looked a little impressed that two humans had survived the long and windy cart ride without turning green. Then, her (or so they thought...) expression went blank again, and she took out the key, and opened the door easily. Lily knew that if anyone else besides a Gringotts goblin tried this, they would either be fried right on the spot.   
  
There was a medium-sized pile of gold in Carrie's vault. Galleons, knuts, and sickles sprinkled the floor, but the amount of money was nothing compared to Lily's. This was because of what had happened years ago.   
  
It had been Carrie's 11-year old birthday party, and Lily still remembered it clearly as though it had been yesterday. Just a couple neighborhood friends had been invited to the party along with Lily, as the two girls didn't have any other friends in Hogwarts. This was the first time that Lily had met Carrie's mom.   
  
Carrie had described her as a "free bird." She was not the stay-at-home mom, who spent all her time baking cookies and making her kids study. She was a person who liked to go out partying with her friends, a person who had let Carrie watch her first R-rated movie at the age of 7, the kind of mom who bought cake and ice cream for no particular reason. That was one of the reasons that Carrie's Muggle father had fallen in love with her magical mother--because she was so independent and different.   
  
The woman was in her 40's, but the bright smile on her face and the hip clothes that she wore made her look like she was 25. She had long curly blond hair and chocolate brown eyes, and had perfect, up-to-date make up on. Lily remembered the exact way she smiled and said, "Hey Lily! Carrie's mentioned you more than once at the dinner table...not that I cooked it, but..." She had laughed, and shook Lily's hand warmly.

That day, Carrie's mom had baked her first cake. For a mom that never cooked, the cake was delicious. It was a chocolate cake, with foamy vanilla frosting, and the words "HAPPY 12th CARRIE!" on it in electric blue letters. Carrie looked caught off guard at the fact that her mother had, for once in her life, acted like a mother and cooked for her. She seemed shocked -- but happy at the same time.   
  
After cake, Carrie's dad, Mr. Wattson, took them all to a roller-blading rink. Lily had expected this wonderful mom to come along, but she declined, saying she had some business to take care of. That night, when Carrie and her dad came back from the rink, Mrs. Wattson wasn't home.   
  
After that, Carrie's mom did not come home. At Hogwarts, Lily used to hear her friend whispering in her sleep, "She's coming home..." After a while, these turned to pleas, and every night, Carrie would sit by her bed, praying that her mom would find her way home.   
  
In June the next year, a completely changed Mrs. Wattson showed up at Carrie's doorstep. She was dressed in the latest French fashion, with her curly blond hair dyed bright red. She had visited many different countries -- America, Japan, Italy, China -- and had the adventure of her life. She looked happier than ever, being so free, but asked guiltily if they could forgive her for being so selfish, and accept her back into the family.   
  
Carrie and her dad couldn't. After the long year that they had suffered and longed for Mrs. Wattson, they couldn't accept her back into their hearts. The place that Carrie's mom used to occupy in her daughter's heart, was now an empty hole. Shortly afterwards, Carrie's mom fell into a deep depression and ended up killing herself only two days later.   
  
She had stuck a sword in her stomach, and screamed so loudly that Carrie and her dad rushed to her room. Mr. Wattson called the police immediately, keeping his cool, but Carrie couldn't do the same. She fell by her mother's side and sobbed uncontrollably, asking one question. "Why?"   
  
Her mother gave one last, sad smile and said, "Carrie, sometimes even free birds get caught."

Carrie and her dad were so overwhelmed by a feeling of guilt and sadness, that they both stopped caring. Her dad, who had worked as a doctor for a large hospital, resigned from work and spent his days lying around with alcohol. The family income went to 0 very quickly, and the two could barely eat.   
  
That was the period when Carrie changed. Every single shirt, key chain, and stuffed animal that she owned with a bird on it--she burned. She went through a phase of all black, and started listening to depressing lyrics that ended up in her crying. She bought all the vile-sounding colors of hair dye (such as bloody death) and dyed her hair until it turned into a strange mixture of mud.   
  
Carrie's dad eventually came to realize that if he didn't work, his daughter would starve to death. He took a job as a pediatrician at a smaller hospital, and tried regaining all their money that was all lost. However, Carrie didn't change back into the happy girl that she once was. A hardcore, angry punk remained.    
  
Now, Carrie spent less nights crying over her dead mother, and she didn't shoot evil glances at birds anymore. However, the death of her mother never ceased to haunt her.

However, Lily's grandmother's income had not undergone any dramatic changes for about 40 years, and a cash flow kept the whole family alive--and rich. Lily also provided some of the money. At age 12, Lily's grandmother had forced her into the job of modeling, something that she used to do, and since then, Lily had steadily gained popularity, and was one of the top teen models at this time. She was on the cover of _Seventeen,_ and _YM_ constantly, and she had model shoots often in the summer. This modeling job kept the money coming.

So, Lily's vault, 482, was much fuller than Carrie's. It had a huge pile of galleons just rolling around, waiting to be used. Lily always asked if Carrie needed some extra money, but her best friend would always refuse, pride getting the best of her.   
  
Both the girls picked up a pretty good amount of money, and headed out, ready to shop.

About two hours later, the two girls showed up in front of Flourish and Blotts, arms loaded with bags. Lily and Carrie had gone around shopping for new robes, quills, dress robes, cauldrons, and everything else besides...books. Both the girls thought they could get their book shopping done pretty easily, and have enough time to wander around Diagon Alley, devouring ice creams on the way. How wrong they were.   
  
When the girls got to Flourish and Blotts, their mouths dropped open. The place was crammed with people desperately trying to get a place in the huge line, and many were bickering over things such as cutting. Lily saw a 2-year old girl crying because her big brother had accidentally knocked over her ice cream cone in the chaos. The redhead had never seen a bookshop so crowded before, so assumed that there was something going on.   
  
"Carrie, can you go check what's up with this place?" Asked Lily, but her friend just pointed to a huge red floating in the sky.   
  
_"England's Quidditch Team-visiting Diagon Alley today, get your autographs in Flourish and Blotts!"_   
  
"Looks like this is going to take a while," muttered Lily, and took her place at the very back of the line.

"So? Do you want to meet the Quidditch team, Carrie?"   
  
"Hell yeah!" Cried her best friend. "I mean--not like I really like Quidditch, but it's always fun to meet famou--" Carrie stopped dead in her tracks, and her mouth fell open. Surreptitiously, she reached into the pocket of her pants and pulled out a black, jagged mirror. She turned it sideways so she could see behind her, and gasped at what she saw.   
  
"Don't look now, but I think the Rauders are right behind us..." she hissed at Lily.   
  
"The Rauders? As in, James Potter, Sirius Bl--"   
  
"Shut up! They could hear us!" Carrie took out the mirror again, and gazed dreamily at what Lily guessed was the reflection of James. "Oh my gosh...I think her just winked at me..." She muttered.   
  
Lily doubted highly that even girl-loving James would flirt with the back of a girl's head, but did not dare mention it. As Carrie did not look in any mood to talk, she decided to listen in to the Rauders' conversation.   
  
"Oh my god! We're going to get to meet the Quidditch team!" Squealed an excited voice behind her, who Lily guessed was Peter. Peter was a pudgy boy with blond hair and watery blue eyes. He was not ugly, but not exactly what Lily would call _hot._ She often wondered why Peter would be included in the Marauder's group.

"Peter, you sound like such a girl..." said a voice that Lily recognized as Remus Lupin's, the only voice of the Marauders' that she did not hear with a tingle of contempt. The Marauders were a group of arrogant, disgusting guys who spent all their time playing dangerous pranks and flirting with girls. They cheated on their girlfriends all the time, and Lily had seen quite a few threesomes going around. She hated the fact that guys took advantage of girls without even the slightest twinge of guilt, as she was a strong feminist believer.   
  
However, in Lily's eyes, Remus wasn't that bad. He was a boy with dirty blond hair and chocolate brown eyes, a well-built body, and a soothing voice. He was usually quieter than his friends, and didn't make fun of anyone much.   
  
The other two were a different story. James Potter and Sirius Black. The two biggest eggheads in the history of Hogwarts. Sirius Black was a boy with shiny black hair and mysterious gray eyes. He had a charming smile, and although Lily hated to admit it, was unbelievably good-looking. James Potter looked a bit like his friend, except with unruly black hair and hazel eyes. He was even more arrogant than Sirius, and usually spent his time boasting to girls about his amazing Quidditch moves.   
  
"Hey guys, did you hear that we're getting some new students?" Asked Sirius. "Since there's been a lot of Muggle-attacks lately in England, a lot of Aurors from America and France are coming over here, because their parents' jobs were moved over here. I heard we're getting a pretty hot group of girls from the States."   
  
"Oh, good, I could use a new girl..." replied James. "Caroline is really getting on my nerves lately, I needed a good reason to break up with her..."   
  
"Oh yeah, same with me and Mandy." Said Sirius, much to Lily's disgust.   
  
"Oh, I think that's them right now..." said James, and Lily could almost see him grinning stupidly.   
  
_Prats,_ she thought to herself.

Lily turned quickly around, and saw a group of girls that she had never seen before walking (or more like sashaying) towards the Marauders. The obvious ringleader of the group had gorgeous blond hair and sea-green eyes, and was wearing a halter-top and skirt very wisely. She winked at James and stuck her hand out saying, "Hi, I'm a new transfer from America. Liza Pluto."   
  
James grinned broadly and winked back. "James Potter." He replied, and the rest of the Marauders smiled, nodded, or winked in reply. Liza and her crowd of girls giggled noisily.   
  
"Ok...well, this is Mary-Ann, Beth, Nelly..." Liza went around introducing girls who looked like exact clones of her, with perfect hair and beautiful make-up. Then she came to one girl who looked nothing like the others.   
  
The last girl had beautiful brown hair with golden highlights, and soft chocolaty eyes. She was chewing on a piece of gum incessantly, and had an expression that screamed "attitude" on. She was wearing a black tank top and black cargoes with a silver chain dangling from the belt. She spit out her gum and landed it perfectly in the garbage can 5 feet away from her. Bull's eye.   
  
Liza stuttered. "Um...this is...erm..."   
  
"Kaylee Eloin." The girl said, holding out her hand.

James Potter looked Kaylee up and down, examining her. He looked down at her unmanicured nails, her pants that were 5 times too big for her, and her jaws, which were still chomping gum. He upturned his nose and turned to Liza.   
  
"So...what's America like?" He asked, his back completely turned on Kaylee. The girl rolled her eyes, ran a hand through her golden brown hair, and stuck her hand in her pocket, pulling out a pack of gum.   
  
_It's always been this way..._ she thought. _I was so stupid to think that I'd ever fit in. To think that anybody would ever like me and let me in their group. I'm always the outcast, the freak, the bitch, the disgusting girl with the uncombed hair...Jeez, why does everyone hate me so much?_   
  
Kaylee fought back tears as she watched the rest of the guys turn their backs on her and tut, muttering something under their breath that sounded like, "Wow, that girl looks like crap..."   
  
She was about to run out of this stupid book store, forgetting her dream about meeting the star Quidditch players, when a voice cut through her heavy thoughts.   
  
"Can I have one?"

Kaylee looked down at her hand, and saw that she was still holding her favorite pack of gum. She looked up again, at the person who had been speaking. Kaylee was faced with two girls who were actually smiling at her. They were both wearing their hair in messy ways, and wearing black. Neither of the girls were flirting with guys, or making snide comments about her---just smiling and asking for a piece of gum.   
  
The girl who had spoken first, the one with flowing red hair and sparkly green eyes, said, "I'm Lily Evans." The other girl with a strange mixture of muddy colored hair said, "Carrie Wattson."   
  
Kaylee looked at the two for a second longer, and then picked out two sticks of gum for them. "Here you go..." she said, a little shyly.   
  
"Thanks," replied Lily, and then motioned in front of her. "Do you want to stay in line with us, or hang out with that ditzy Liza-girl?"   
  
Kaylee grinned. That wasn't a choice worth much thinking about.

"So, do you like Quidditch?" Asked Lily to Kaylee. The redhead was really starting to enjoy Kaylee's company, as the girl was hilarious, witty, and very clever. She had a habit of cracking jokes about how ditzy Liza was, which always made Lily and Carrie double up in laughter.   
  
"Yeah, I love it. I used to play beater on the team at my school."   
  
"Were you any good?" Asked Carrie.   
  
"Well...I don't mean to brag, but there were a couple times when I kicked some serious jock-butt out on the field."   
  
"Jock butt, eh? Well then, you should join the Quidditch team and help make Potter look like an idiot." Lily intervened, grinning.   
  
"Potter? Is that the kid with the black messy hair who ignored me? Is he a jock?"   
  
"Yeah, he is...isn't he _hot?_" Replied Carrie, completely ignoring the disgusted tone of voice that Kaylee had been using. "I think he's so cute, with his ruffled black hair and his hazel eyes..." Carrie trailed off, and her mouth sagged open. Lily sensed the danger of drool output from her friend, so turned to Kaylee.   
  
"Sorry, she's a bit obsessed with that stupid jerk..."   
  
Kaylee smiled. "That's ok. You have to admit, he is kind of cute, but you can't judge a book by its cover."   
  
"No, you can't." Agreed Lily.

Lily was actually very excited to meet the Quidditch stars. Of the seven players that made up the England Quidditch team, she was only nervous about meeting one of them. Maria Muddies. Maria was the Seeker of the Quidditch, one of the first women to ever play on a Quidditch team. And to add to that, Maria was also a Muggle-born. For this reason, most magazines made fun of her, and called her "Maria Mudblood," instead.   
  
When she made a spectacular save in a Quidditch match of the snitch, the press would always twist the whole story around and make it sound like Maria had had an easy game. Referees liked to call fouls on Maria, and if someone deliberately crashed into the poor, 19-year old girl, they would ignore it. However, it was not an arguable fact that Maria was a wonderful seeker. She always managed to catch the snitch, and the England Quidditch team had not lost one game after she had joined. But everyone denied this proven fact, and just called her the some horrible name such as "Dirty Mud."   
  
However, Lily could not understand this sort of discrimination. She thought that Maria was just as good as anyone else, and supported her fully. In fact, Lily had Muddies posters all around her bedroom and was a very faithful fan.   
  
As the line grew shorter and shorter, Lily took out her notebook for autographs and a pen. Carrie started matting down her strange-looking hair, and batting her eyelashes nervously. It was obvious whom Carrie wanted to meet. Chris Poole. The Chaser of the Quidditch team, with perfect blond hair and beautiful icy blue eyes, that in Carrie's words, "you could just drown in."   
  
"Oh my gosh---I think I see Chris!" Whispered Carrie excitedly, snapping Lily back to reality.

Just as well as Carrie could see her beloved Chris, Lily could see her idol Maria. Without even looking at the other Quidditch members, Lily walked over to Maria. She looked just like she did in the magazines, with wild brown hair and fiery blue eyes.   
  
"Hi. I'm Lily Evans. I'm your number one fan." Said Lily, grinning cheekily, but thinking in her head, _Man, why do I sound so stupidly lame?_   
  
However, Maria did not roll her eyes at Lily's clichéd remark, and instead smiled. "Hi Lily." She said, and stuck her hand out. Lily gladly shook it, wondering how many people had said to Maria that they were her number one fan. She asked her thoughts, and Maria's expression contorted sadly.   
  
"You're my first one, Lily." She sighed, and the redhead sensed much sorrow in her voice.   
  
"Huh? How could that be? Don't girls support you? Don't people see you as a person who managed to make their dreams come true, even when they were female and a Muggle-born? I would have thought..."   
  
"Yeah, I did too." Maria cut in, nodding. "I used to have all these stupid fantasies of people saying, 'I'm your number one fan!' and waving posters with pictures of me on them. But reality's different. People don't like things that they aren't used to. And a woman Seeker who can beat up the guys is definitely something that they're not used to." Maria paused, looking at Lily apologetically. "I'm sorry, you probably don't understand..."   
  
"No. I do. In fact, I understand so much that it pains me. Please keep trying, Maria. When people do get used to you, they're going to love you. I have a dream, too. Even though I'm a girl and a Muggle-born, I want to become an Auror." Lily hardly knew why she was spilling her life's ambitions to some one she hadn't even spoken to before, but she just felt...comfortable around Marie.   
  
"Well, I hope your dreams come true, Lily. Thanks for being my number one fan. You're awesome." She said, and smiled, giving Lily a specially autographed photo.   
  
"I hope so, too."

Lily walked out of Flourish and Blotts, cradling an autographed poster of Muddies, grinning broadly. Carrie was telling her and Kaylee about a great save that her idol, Chris Pool, had made in a Quidditch match, but Lily really wasn't listening. She was lost in her own thoughts.   
  
Now, Lily wasn't one to make friends easily. She was very...different, so most people chose not to get to know her, and just labeled her as the "weird outcast-punk." Lily usually didn't care, but she admitted that not having friends could become a little depressing, too. So, it was a pretty big deal for a 19-year old girl that just happened to be her idol, to make good friends with Lily and be kind to her. _If Marie doesn't succeed in becoming popular with the crowd of Quidditch-lovers, I'll make sure I do. I'll become the most famous Auror ever, and I'll throw every single bad guy in jail. I will be great._ Thought Lily, fiercely and positively.   
  
Then, Lily looked down at her watch.   
  
Suddenly, all positive thoughts were lost.   
  
"Carrie!" Lily screeched, her face looking nervous. "It's 7:00!"   
  
"What?" Asked Carrie, who had been in a frantic explanation of how Chris had narrowly missed crashing into another fellow Quidditch player in the Cup Finals last year. "Oh my god...it is. Wasn't Orri supposed to pick us up 30 minutes ago?"   
  
"Yes..." trailed Lily's voice off, dryly. "If I'm late coming back home, Grandmother's going to hurt me..."   
  
Little did Lily's two friends know that what the redhead had just said was completely literal.   
  
"Well, then I guess we have to go...bye, Kaylee, nice meeting you!" The two girls cried, and ran off, the last sounds of, "Bye!" echoing in their ears.

Lily and Carrie ran into the Leaky Cauldron about 20 minutes later, panting, sweating, and looking altogether disheveled. They gave each other what looked like a cross between a reassuring smile and a worried look, and then walked over to the bar, where Borris was sitting. Lily looked at what Borris was sipping, and did a double take.   
  
A butterbeer. Borris was drinking one of those bubbly, sweet wizard drinks that were common in a pub called The Three Broomsticks. However, Borris was not one to try new things, and Lily would have bet all her life belongings that the guy sitting at the bar, talking easily to Tom, and drinking butterbeer like he did it every day -- was not Borris. But it was.   
  
Lily walked over tentatively to who she thought was her butler, and tapped him on the shoulder, expecting him to burst about how worried he was. What she got was a friendly greeting and a smile.   
  
"Lily! Hi! Where have you been? You're a little late...oh well, that's fine...I know how girls can be when they go shopping," Borris said, chuckling appreciatively at himself.   
  
"Uh...Borris? Are you OK? You're not acting like...yourself." Lily asked, a little worried. Borris was acting like one of those laid-back, carefree types, when really he was one of the most uptight guys in London.   
  
"I'm fine, Lily dear. I was just chatting with Tom about the first day he met you."   
  
Something inside Lily's head snapped, and she finally understood. Borris was acting the way he was, because he had finally made a friend. When he was growing up, Borris's family was always rich and prestigious, and never let him play with his friends, something that normal kids do. Instead, Borris went to a male finishing school to learn how to play the piano, table manners, and the art of bowing. All of the guys at his normal school teased him for doing that, and thought he was a disgrace to the name "man." Borris never had any real friends after that, and became a very uptight, serious guy who wouldn't recognize the difference between a joke and mortal danger.

However, now, Borris seemed to be making up for his friendless days by talking with Tom on the one subject that he wasn't totally clueless on--Lily, his almost daughter. The subject of conversation slowly smiled, ordered a butterbeer for herself and Carrie, and listened in closely to Borris and Tom's conversation. It sounded like they were old friends, who stopped at bars frequently to talk about pretty much everything.   
  
After about an hour of the lingering conversation, Borris suddenly realized the time, swept the two kids into the parked limo outside with a hurried good bye to Tom, and drove home frantically. They dropped Carrie off at her house without even a proper farewell, and raced home, miraculously avoiding all traffic. They arrived home at 9:30, about two hours later than expected.   
  
Lily gulped. She could foresee the reaction of her grandmother, and it was not going to be good. The two walked in the house with hands hanging low, both gritting their teeth. Madam Evans greeted them both in a silk pink bathrobe, her wispy gray hair tied up in a knot at the top of her head.   
  
"Well...hello," she said, rather pleasantly. "You're home a little late," she said, smiling sweetly. "I bet you're both tired. Would you like a cup of tea?"   
  
Lily could hardly believe her ears. _What's she playing at?_ The girl thought to herself, biting her lip. Her grandma had not acted like a normal grandma in years, and here she was--acting all...nice and fluffy. Lily had been expecting the rough bulldog approach, and what she got was a cute, cuddly kitten instead.   
  
"Erm...sure, tea would be great..." trailed Lily, looking at her pink grandmother unsurely.   
  
"All right, I'll order it right away from the kitchens. Why don't you sit down in the living room?" (By living room, Lily's grandmother meant something more like a grand hall) "We can sit down and chat about...Pigwarts."   
  
"Hogwarts, Madam." Lily corrected.   
  
"Call me Grandmother."


	5. Home Again

**Hey guys! **_I hope you guys enjoy this chapter! _J

**Disclaimer. **I do not own any of these characters. J.K. Rowling is the amazing author who created them. I don't make money off this. It's just for fun.

**Sequence-**I'm sorry if you feel that it's cliché, and I'll do everything in my power to make it as original as I can.

**Trashcan-**I'll try to remember to email you tomorrow, because I only have time to post this right now, so…yeah.

**The-star101**-Well, thank you. *blushes deeply*

_Love, *--Amy--*_

An hour later, Lily trooped up the stairs, thoroughly confused. Her grandmother had actually been...nice to her. She had listened intently about who Carrie and Kaylee was, while sipping her Jasmine tea thoughtfully. She had let Lily watch her favorite program on TV, and eat mint chocolate ice cream, which was usually forbidden, because in the Madam's eyes, ice cream was a dangerous fatty substance. Also, she had asked intelligent questions about Hogwarts, and avoided the subject of modeling completely--something that Lily hated to talk about.   
  
_She's plotting something. That sly little duck is plotting something big._   
  
Lily thought darkly and fell asleep to a nightmare filled with evil grandmothers in pink bathrobes with webbed feet and bills.   
  
One week later, on the day that she was returning to Hogwarts, Lily woke up to the sound of her extremely expensive alarm clock ringing mercilessly in her ear. She turned it off immediately, and rose from her bed, yawning and stretching. The girl opened her eyes slowly, only to scream. Standing right in front of her was a guy.   
  
The guy looked about 40 years old, with very hairy legs but a completely bald head. He held himself in a strange way, with his hand on his hip--in a very ladylike way. It looked like there was some kind of black eyeliner around his eyes, and Lily realized with a shock who it was.   
  
Paul Doe. That was only his English name, but his French name was something long and intricate that Lily couldn't quite get her tongue around. He was an immigrant from France, and the owner of the most famous women's clothesline in Britain. But that was only because he had an advantage over most men clothes-designers. He _thought_ like a woman.   
  
"Good morning, Zily," he said in his silky, French accent.   
  
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Doe." She answered nervously, not knowing why this world-famous man was standing in her bedroom.   
  
"Your grandmother told me to pick out ze clothing for ze first day of ze school, Zily, so I am here to velp you."   
  
Suddenly, Lily understood why her grandmother had been acting so strange. This was what she was plotting. To reveal to Lily's classmates what she had to look and act like at home, a secret she did not want getting out.

Paul Doe looked around in Lily's closet and pulled out a green strapless dress that criss-crossed in the back. He also picked out matching bright white shoes, and laid out loads of make-up. He threw Lily the dress and said, "You can change, Zily. For all I care, you can change right vere, since I'm gay anyway."   
  
Lily looked at Paul speechless, opened her mouth, closed it again, and then replied, "Uh...that's ok, I'll use the closet..."   
  
An hour later, Lily walked out from her room looking beautiful, but very disgruntled. The green dress fit her like a glove, and her eyes matched the color of her dress much too well. Her hair was pulled up in an elegant knot at the top of her head, and her white heels clinked as she walked. Paul had forced a pair of golden hoops on her ears, and all make-up was absolutely perfect--great eyeliner, pink lip gloss, just the right blush...   
  
However, the girl wasn't very happy with her appearance. _This isn't me,_ she told herself fiercely. _Stupid grandmother, making me be something I'm not..._ On the contrary, Madam Evans was very pleased with Lily's perfect appearance. She shrieked excitedly when she saw her granddaughter, and enveloped Mr. Doe in a hug, crying, "Thank you! Thank you! You're a genius!"   
  
Lily rolled her eyes, and stuck up her finger to make an obscene sign at her grandmother behind her back. Nobody noticed, which was a good thing, because if the redhead was caught doing that, she would be whipped right on the spot. Soon, it was time to leave to the train station, and grandmother offhandedly ordered one of the butlers, Chris, to drive Lily. Without even a goodbye to one of her only family members that were still alive, Lily left the house.

Chris was a 19-year old guy who had taken a job at Madam Evans's only because he had flunked out of high school and couldn't find any other jobs that would support his life-style. Not many jobs gave enough pay for people to live regularly without a high school diploma, but since Chris only cleaned and chauffeured at the Evans household, he was able to eat as much food as he wanted from the kitchens and have a fair amount of pay.   
  
Lily liked Chris, as he was a very laidback, friendly guy, something that usually could not be seen in any of her grandmother's maids. Instead of calling Lily "Little Mistress Evans," he called her Lil. His dream was to become a guitarist, and Lily had to admit, he was _good._ He could listen to a melody, pick it up, and perfect it in one minute flat. Anything that Lily wanted to sing, Chris could always provide the harmony for her, and willingly too.   
  
The one negative about him was that he had the biggest mouth Lily had ever seen. Once, in June, when Lily told Chris where she kept her secret stash of candy, Chris had accidentally let it slip to another maid, who just happened to be one of those snotty tattle-tales named Anna. Anna rushed over to Madam Evans and spilled Lily's secret, and within a week, all of Lily's forbidden, fatty foods were gone.   
  
So, as much as Lily wanted to, she knew she couldn't tell Adam about being a witch.   
  
"So, Lil, watcha wearing?"   
  
"I think," Lily snapped, not feeling in the best mood at the moment, "it's called a _dress._"   
  
"Yeah, I know...but, you don't do dresses, Lil. It's just...not you."   
  
"And you think I don't know that?! My stupid grandmother thinks it's good to be formal on the first day of school, so she's making me wear this." Replied Lily, looking down disgustedly at her outfit.   
  
"Well, you look pretty, at least. Even if you don't like how you look, all the guys will be drooling over you. That's a plus, right?"   
  
"No, it's not. I hate guys." Lily said, scowling deeply.   
  
"You hate me?"   
  
"Well, technically, you're not a guy, Chris. You're a huge particle of mouth."   
  
"Haha." Answered Chris dryly.

Soon, the car pulled up to the train station, and Lily hopped out of the limo.   
  
Now, let me fill you in on something. Usually, shiny black limos don't pull up in front of a plain old train station in the middle of a hustle-bustle street in London. And usually, the person in the limo isn't a famous super model that has been on the cover of different magazines just about 17 times. And usually, that person isn't a witch.   
  
But today, Lily Evans was being driven to the train station, and these were exactly the rare circumstances. Lily hopped out of the car, hoping secretly that by taking quick movements would tear the seams of her dress, but this didn't happen. The dress fit perfectly, just like they always did, and Lily remained looked gorgeous. _Ick,_ she thought as many kids pointed at her and whispered to their friends. Lily caught snatches of the whispers, that went something like:   
  
"Isn't that the Lily Bevans girl?"   
  
"I think it was something more like Peevans."   
  
"Well, whatever, but she's gorgeous, like the magazines say..."   
  
"You think we should get an autograph?"   
  
Lily walked swiftly away from the crowd of giggling people, wishing to find a face that she could actually be comforted by. Then, she remembered something that almost stopped her heartbeat. Chris. How the hell was she supposed to get onto Platform 9 3/4 without Chris seeing?   
  
"Li-ly! Wait up! Which station were you supposed to go to, again?" Came the cheerful voice of the 19-year old.   
  
"Umm...platform 10-ish."   
  
"Ish? How do you have an ishy platform?"   
  
"Um...yeah, well..." Lily squirmed, trying to think of the perfect excuse.

Lily was starting to sweat and get confused, when suddenly; an idea hit her out of the blue.   
  
"Uh...Chris. You know, I just remembered something. I was supposed to meet a friend at this platform, and we were supposed to get on the train together, could you do me the favor of looking for him?"   
  
"Sure, what does he look like?"   
  
"Uh..." Lily trailed off, mentally scanning her brain for any describable male figures that came to mind. "Disorderly black hair, hazel eyes, pretty well built, and around 5'11." Said Lily, and Chris immediately turned around, looking for the guy that his mistress was describing.   
  
While Chris's back was turned to her, the redhead grabbed her suitcase in a flash, propped her elbow up against the secret barrier casually, and started humming a soft tune. She leaned in closer and closer to the platform, until she felt a rushing feeling, and before she knew it, Lily was on the other side.   
  
Lily knew that what she had just done would probably get Chris in big trouble, and he would be frantically searching for her until the break of dawn, but she couldn't help it. Lily just couldn't afford to let her secret get out, and she would make the necessary sacrifices to keep her secret. _Chris is probably going to hate me...but I can't give up magic for him. I love Hogwarts so much, my escape haven, my heaven..._ Suddenly, a thought occurred to her. Why the heck had she described James Potter, her enemy as a friend to Chris? What had gotten into her? Shaking her head, she pushed the thought out and tried to think of something happier – like Hogwarts.   
  
Lily sighed a breath of relief at the sight of a familiar scarlet engine in front of her, and she lugged her suitcase onto the train, searching for a couple of familiar voices. Two voices drifted from compartment number seven that she had heard of before.   
  
"Ok, so Lee, as I was saying--"   
  
"Carrie, don't call me that, I hate that nickname..."   
  
"Too bad, deal with it. I'm calling you Lee, and that's that. So anyway..."   
  
Lily threw the door open, expecting a warm welcome from her two best friends in the entire world, but what she got were two equally horrified shrieks.

Carrie, one of the people who Lily had been expecting a friendly welcome from, burst into a long string of profanity, and shouted, "What the HELL are you wearing? You look like a...slut!"   
  
Kaylee just raised her eyebrow at Lily's...extreme choice of clothing, and said softly, "Well, you look different," distastefully. She then took out a book from her suitcase, put it in front of her face, and completely ignored Lily. Carrie, however, did not have the cool attitude that Kaylee had. She was practically frothing at the mouth from her impossible anger, and she seemed to want to smack Lily. "What _happened_ to you?" She asked with a shaking voice.   
  
Lily, a little annoyed, answered in her iciest voice. "It's not like I wanted to wear these clothes. My grandmother thinks it's better if I wear formal clothes on the first day of school. I really would have thought that I'd get more of a welcome than the start of a row from my best friends."   
  
At this, Kaylee's head snapped up from her book, and a sheepish expression appeared on her face. Carrie's red, blotchy countenance faded slowly, and she muttered, "Oh." Lily's stone cold face softened, though. She could actually see traces of worry and hurt in her two friends, and she felt a little guilty.   
  
"Sorry." Said Lily, "I really am. I'm just not in the best mood right now. I'm not that fond of wearing tight green dresses, either."   
  
Kaylee smiled. "You want to start over?"   
  
"Sure."   
  
The three girls stood up, came together in a huge group hug, and exclaimed loudly, "Sorry!" at the exact same time.   
  
Lily was beginning to feel better already.

Just then, Lily heard a couple of voices that weren't exactly welcome in her mind. Kaylee's expression hardened, and both girls rolled their eyes at the exact same time. However, Carrie's face grew bright red, and a loopy grin adorned her face. She whispered softly, "Is that the Rauders?"   
  
It was, in fact, the Marauders who were making a huge racket outside. Lily heard James and Sirius's loud voices, and to her absolute disgust, the two troublemakers slid open the door, and came into their compartment.   
  
Lily had to admit, that as much as she despised James Potter, he was hot. He was an idiot, but a cute idiot. Currently, his arm was draped casually over Liza Pluto's shoulder, who was batting her eyelashes constantly and smiling broadly. Sirius Black was holding hands with one of Liza's clones, Abby. Remus, the quiet Marauder, followed his two friends, looking disgruntled. And Lily soon saw the reason why.   
  
"I'm sorry, Mandy, but I just can't continue with this relationship anymore!" Cried Sirius melodramatically, looking at a blond girl who had practically thrown herself at his feet.   
  
"B-but, Sirius, you said that I was the only one! You said that--"   
  
"I know, Mandy. But I'm in love with Abby now. And I can't change that!" Sirius exclaimed, raising a hand to his heart and pulling a huge, fake sob. The other girl, who was holding onto James's hair and bawling, looked even more desperate than Mandy. "Jamsie-poosy, I love you! You can't do this to me!"   
  
"Caroline, I told you, I'm sorry..."   
  
"Jaaaaaaaaaaames!" Screamed Caroline, pulling at his hair even harder and taking a few strands of black hair from his forehead.   
  
"Ow, Caroline...what are you doing?"   
  
"I'll kiss your hair every night, and wish that someday, you'll come back to me, Jamesy-poosy. I'll always be loyal. Alwaaays!" Caroline screamed, took her crying friend, Mandy's arm, and dragged her out of the compartment. Lily saw them collapse into tears through the glass window of the compartment, but James nor Sirius did not seem to notice.   
  
In fact, they did not seem to notice anything else except the two girls right in front of them.

"Liza," said James soothingly, "All that stuff I said to Caroline about being sorry was completely fake. You know I only have eyes for you."   
  
"Same goes for me, Abby," said Sirius in a husky voice, smiling seductively. Lily couldn't see why the two girls in front of her couldn't see that what Sirius and James were doing was an act, and they were just toying with their feelings. Lily wondered how stupid these girls had to be to not know that guys only played with you, and never really meant anything they said.   
  
"I know, Jamesy." Answered Liza, and much to Lily's disgust, the two couples began kissing. Lily and Kaylee tutted and curled their lips at exactly the same time, while Remus turned away, wrinkling his nose. To Lily's surprise though, Carrie started sobbing softly, and her face started getting redder by the minute, looking like she wanted to slap her beloved "Rauder." Lily, not being able to take her friend's tears anymore, stood up, stomped, and said loudly, "Ahem."   
  
Instantly, as if they were on fire, the two couples broke apart, and looked at the girl who had cleared her throat. 5 pairs of eyes widened at the sight of her. Liza and Abby's eyes slowly contorted from shock to a glare, and the two girls looked at Lily enviously. However, the guys' reactions were very different.   
  
Remus's jaw dropped open wide and he started to look like a lovesick puppy, while Sirius nervously winked in Lily's direction, trying desperately to show off. The thing that alarmed Lily the most though, was James's reaction. The James that she had just described to Chris as a "friend," the James that she thought was a horrible, arrogant prat, the James that Carrie was madly in love with...   
  
The very same James's features absolutely _melted_ at the sight of Lily. His mouth opened, closed, and opened again without making a sound, while his eyes looked Lily up and down, over and over again. A fine line of drool output itself from James's mouth, and slid slowly onto Liza's shoe. James tried hurriedly to regain his composure, but his balance was instantly ruined by Liza raising up her foot, and crying, "Eww!" This resulted in James tripping right over Liza's foot, stumbling, then smashing right into Sirius, and doing a face plant right in front of Lily's feet.   
  
James looked up quickly and went into a kneel, taking Lily's hand and kissing it. "M'lady, I have come to rescue you." He said softly, looking into Lily's eyes and speaking as if tripping over Liza, crashing into his best friend, and landing face flat was the equivalent to crossing a dangerous field of fire-breathing dragons.

Lily looked at James, who was making a move to kiss her hand, and then at her friend Carrie, who seemed like she wanted to disappear right on the spot and cry her heart out, and then at Liza, who was red and seething. Lily turned her gaze back at James, and then smiled.   
  
"Thanks, but no." She said coolly, and stood up, refusing James's kiss. The boy looked absolutely confounded, and it was clear that he had never been turned down by a girl before. If anyone in the room had had the power to take a magic bus trip to James Potter's head, they would have found it blank and filled with shock. _Nobody_ refused the James Potter. _Everyone_ loved him, everyone wanted him, and everyone wanted to be like him. But here, right in front of him, the most gorgeous girl that he had ever seen in his life was giving him the cold shoulder.   
  
"Uh--what--er--," James stuttered, not knowing how to retort. Lily, taking James's speechless state to her advantage, pushed the 15-year old boy out of the door along with his pack of friends, and slammed the door right in front of their faces, saying icily, "Bye!"   
  
Then, she turned back to Carrie. Lily wouldn't have been surprised if the poor girl drowned in her own tears.

"Carrie, are you OK?" Lily asked softly, putting a comforting hand on her friend's shoulder, which was trembling incessantly.   
  
"No--I c-can't believe...kissing another girl like that...and then, trying t-to kiss you...and t-the stupid, the horrible prat! I can't believe I actually liked him! I feel like such an idiot!" Carrie's sobs turned eventually into an all-out fit of rage, and Lily could truthfully say that she liked an angry friend better than a crying one.   
  
"Just let it all out, Carrie, yell and swear about Potter all you want," said Lily, grinning. It felt good to hear Potter's stupid name next to a swear word every second.   
  
After maybe 30 minutes of complaining, backbiting, and yelling about Potter, the three girls were officially tired, and both Kaylee and Carrie slid off to dream land. Lily watched her snoozing friends peacefully, and decided that it was time to write.   
  
Lily loved to write. Poems, short stories, mystery, horror, romance -- anything. It was her favorite hobby in the entire world, and before Lily wanted to become an Auror, a profession as a writer had sounded very appealing to. Whenever she was trapped in her room at the Madam's house, bored out of her mind, Lily would pick up some paper and pencil, and write anything that came to mind. The piece that she was writing now was filled with all the emotions that she kept bottled up inside of her.   
  
_I am alone. Alone in a world of nothing. Nothing lived here, nothing moved here, nothing made a sound here. It isn't even a place worth describing, because there is nothing to describe. I didn't used to know what nothing looked like, but I do now. Fog. Sun. White. Black. Rabbit. Wolf. All at the same time. It's just...nothing. I can't describe it.   
  
And then, suddenly, I was cold. Dead cold. The very blood in my veins froze, my heart stopped beating, and my lips turned purple. I couldn't breathe--I was losing life--fast. A tear rolled down my cheek, followed by another one. The tear didn't taste like salt, like it usually did. It tasted like death._   
  
Lily was in the middle of her mysterious story, when a bodiless voice echoed through the hallways.   
  
"Arriving soon at Hogwarts! Please change into your robes, fellow students!" Lily snapped the book shut, and threw her robes on, pushing all the feelings back in.

Lily gently shook her friends awake, whispering, "We're here," the same away a mother might do to a child. Carrie and Kaylee awoke softly, but did not have the same approach that a weak, helpless baby might have when awoken by their mother.   
  
"Liiiiily!" Screeched Kaylee, "You are not to wake us up 3 seconds before the train stops! I don't have any time to change!" The golden-haired girl carelessly slipped into her robes and changed from her jeans to her skirt hurriedly.   
  
"Seriously, Lil, you should care about your own friends more," Said Carrie, making a full recovery from the James-incident, now back to her old sadistic self.   
  
"Well, jeez guys, sorry, but I thought you wanted to sleep..."   
  
"We did. But...oh, bah! Let's just get out of this stupid train!" Kaylee shouted, and ran from the compartment, nearly tripping over the step leading to the outside world. Carrie and Lily rushed right after her, and the three friends suffered a huge collision. It seemed that Kaylee had stopped at the beautiful sight of forest and lake in front of her, and hadn't moved out of the way.   
  
"Lee!" Cried Carrie in a thick, annoyed voice, "Don't stop, we have to hurry and get a good carriage!"   
  
The three friends ran at full speed towards the carriages that would lead them up to Hogwarts Castle, all panting and breathing heavily. Lily pointed out her favorite carriage, saying, "Let's go sit in that one, with Pudding."   
  
"Huh? Pudding?" Came the confused reply from Kaylee. Lily and Carrie both froze, lost at a response for their new friend. Pudding was the nickname for a thestral that pulled the "horseless" carriages. A thestral was a strange horse like creature that only people who had seen death with their own two eyes could see. Lily still remembered the first time she had seen a thestral.

It had been in her first year, when a giant, hairy man named Hagrid had been shooing her into a boat to ride the way to Hogwarts. Right behind the man, Lily saw a gallant, shadow-like horse. Lily, who loved animals, had tried to duck under Hagrid, and stroke the mysterious horse, but it flitted away before she could even reach it. All the way to Hogwarts, she had told Carrie all about this strange horse, and asked if she had seen it. She had not.   
  
In fact, asking all the girls in her dorm didn't help either. "I told you Lily, the carriages here are horseless."   
  
"There are no horses."   
  
"Especially that look like shadows."   
  
"Got it?" Her dorm mates would say coldly to her, leaving the strange red-haired girl to her own thoughts and troubles. However, the second time she saw a thestral, it had been with Carrie. It was right after Carrie's mom had killed herself, and so both Lily and Carrie had fallen in love with these so-called "thestrals." The two had named the smallest, loneliest looking thestral of the pack, Pudding, and vowed to ride only his carriage every time they went to Hogwarts.   
  
"Um...guys? What the heck is a pudding carriage?" Kaylee asked again.   
  
Carrie suddenly started laughing, and elbowed Lily in the stomach discreetly as a sign to follow suit. The two friends cracked up in hysterics, not knowing what else to do. "See, in our third year, we were so dumb, that we decided to give names to invisible horses."   
  
"Haha, weren't we so stupid?" Asked Lily, keeping a fake grin on her face. She didn't want to tell Kaylee about the thestrals yet, or about how her family was all dead for the exception of her horrible grandmother and sister, or how Carrie's mother had committed suicide. Lily needed to trust Kaylee more to tell her these secrets that she usually kept hidden in her heart.   
  
Kaylee looked at her two friends with doubt in her eyes, but that soon faded, and she laughed, too, to both Carrie and Lily's deep relief.

Kaylee got on the carriage pulled by the "invisible" thestral Pudding, still laughing about giving nicknames to nonexistent objects. Lily and Carrie grinned at her, then turned back to Pudding. The thestral was very important to the two girls, as they both believed strongly that Pudding represented hope. The first time that they had seen Pudding, he was thin, with blotchy, short wings and yellowing eyes--a runt that was so small he was about to die.   
  
Now, he was magnificent. He had a coat of shiny black, shadow-like fur and bright white, sparkly eyes that glowed fiercely. His wings had grown longer over the years, and he had come to trust the two girls, who, in their free time, came out to feed, talk to, and pet Pudding. In just two years, he had outgrown the state of runt and become one of the most beautiful thestral in the pack.   
  
Although Lily and Carrie did not have much hope in life at this time, and both believed that life sucked, watching Pudding gave them some faith. Carrie had started to forgive her mother for her suicidal act, and Lily had begun to tell Carrie bits and pieces of her home life, instead of hiding it all. However, the redhead still managed to keep everything inside, not recounting the facts and forgetting her past.   
  
Lily and Carrie both climbed into the carriage, filled with some hope, when they learned that, unfortunately, it looked like they were sharing Pudding's carriage.

Instead of being blissfully empty, the cursed carriage was seating Caroline, Becky, and a girl called Maria Rivera. Caroline and Becky used to be the two biggest flirts in the entire grade, and dressed up all the time just so the guys would like them, but now it seemed that the tables had turned and Liza was sure on her way to wearing The Flirt Queen dress. Maria hung out with Caroline and Becky, but she was more of a softer, nicer type. She was very clever in Transfiguration, and also played Chaser for the team. She had layered brown hair and sparkly brown eyes, unlike her two friends who were both blond and blue-eyed. Lily did not have a problem with blonds, but had a huge problem with these two.   
  
"Oh my god, what the heck are you three doing here?" Screeched Caroline in her annoying crow-like voice, batting her eyelashes the whole time. Lily rolled her eyes, thinking that these two girls seemed to have some kind of nervous system linkage between their mouths and their lashes, so that they couldn't speak without either giggling or blinking rapidly.   
  
"We're...sitting here, Gemini." Answered Lily coldly, eyeing Caroline Gemini with a scowl. "Well, we were here first, so...like, move!" Suddenly, the carriage started rolling, and it was impossible for anyone to move. Lily sighed deeply--stuck in a carriage with the two biggest flirty blabbermouths in the entire school. _Fun, fun, fun..._ "Fine. Let's just ignore those...weird girls." Said Mandy, facing her two friends.

"Good idea, Mandy." Said Caroline, and then sighed. "Ugh...I cannot believe what James did to me today! I mean, seriously, I'd had it all planned out, too!" "What do you mean?" Asked Maria, and Lily let a sigh of relief escape her because Maria at least, didn't talk in the horrible screechy voice that her friends used.   
  
"Well, at the end of Seventh Year, at the Graduation Ball that we have every year, he was going to ask me to get married, during the last slow song of the evening...preferably something like 'I'll always love you...' you know, like a romantic song. And then, I was going to say yes, and everyone was going to cheer, and he was going to give me a diamond engagement ring with little flecked rubies...I'll show you a picture of it, I've already got it picked out. And then, one year later, we would get married, and we'd invite everyone. Yeah, and then we'd have two kids...Holly and Hal. Doesn't it sound absolutely perfect?"   
  
Lily couldn't help but laugh at that. How Caroline had had her whole stupid future planned out like that really made her want to crack up. In fact, Kaylee, Carrie, and Lily all buried their heads in their hands to keep from laughing.   
  
Soon, thankfully enough, the carriage slowed to a stop, and the three friends hopped out, all of them checking their ears to see if they were deaf yet.

As the girls got closer to the castle, Kaylee started shuffling her feet and looking genuinely nervous.   
  
"What's wrong?" Asked Carrie and Lily at the same time, not even bothering to laugh because they always seemed to say, think, and do things at the exact same moment.   
  
"I dunno...I'm just a little nervous about that Sorting ceremony thing. I heard that you had to first, fight dragons, then, model a swimsuit for the Hall, and then perform a talent? Problem is, I don't have a special talent. I mean, I can play Beater pretty well, but other than that..."   
  
"No, you don't have to do any of that stuff," said Lily, laughing. "The ceremony's much simpler than that."   
  
"Then what do I have to do?"   
  
"You'll see..." Said Carrie, grinning evilly, and blowing Kaylee a fake kiss with a "Good luck on the sorting!" as she walked over to the rest of the first years.   
  
"And she doesn't even know that all she has to do is try on a hat!" Cried Lily, laughing along with Carrie, watching their new friend shiver with fear and nerves, or maybe just the plain cold, as she watched other first years and a huge giant man named Hagrid.   
  
"Well, let's go in the Great Hall." Said Carrie, and Lily followed suit, still laughing her rear end off.

When Lily and Carrie entered the Great Hall, both of them sighed in relief. It was so...cozy, so much like...home. The ceiling was enchanted as a storm, and lightning flashed in every corner of the room, making imaginary rumbles of noises. The tables were set up for all four houses to sit and join their friends, and the familiar sense of magic floated down the hall and whisked itself into Lily's nose, along with the smells of chicken and gravy. Lily's stomach grumbled, and for once, she was glad to be able to eat anything she wanted, except yogurt and "rabbit food."   
  
_Ah...I'm home,_ she thought happily, finding a seat next to Carrie and looking around the Hall for familiar faces. Lily caught one girl's eye, who was in Hufflepuff, by the name of Nicole Seery. Nicole wasn't a punk like Lily, Carrie, or Kaylee, but she was a very nice person with a great sense of humor. She was in the same year as both Lily and Carrie, but they didn't have many classes together, which was a shame. She had beautiful, layered blond hair and bluish-green eyes that always twinkled mischievously. Lily always wondered why the girl didn't get into Gryffindor, as she was always pranking people and telling jokes, sort of like the Marauders. The one difference between them was that Nicole was actually _nice_ to Lily.   
  
"Hey Nic!" Shouted Carrie over two tables to the blond, using another one of her obsessive nicknames.   
  
"Carrie! Lils! Hey!" Screamed Nicole over the noise, scaring a couple second years by her, who scooted away, looking disturbed by Nicole's unnaturally loud voice.   
  
"How was summer?" Asked Lily, quieter than her two friends, but still loudly, not really caring if she happened to make others feel uncomfortable.   
  
"Same old, same old. Played some video games, brushed up on my pranks using my cousin as a guinea pig, went shopping, ate tons of ice cream...I think I gained about ten pounds." 

  
All three girls laughed, and then turned towards the stage as a familiar voice echoed through the hall.   
  
"Welcome back, Hogwarts students!" Boomed Dumbledore.


End file.
